Pat Howard: Pope Francis' words inspire uncertain hope for change

ERIE, Pa. -- There was a wire service piece instead of my words in this space last Sunday not because I wasn't trying to write them, but because I struggled to wrap my mind and heart around the subject at hand.

Then my deadline slipped by. Pope Francis has that effect on me.

What's struck me overall as I've read his remarkable words is that he's speaking of a world I recognize in its complexity and evolving sensibilities. A modern world, for better and worse.

Two lengthy, freewheeling interviews -- one published in the Jesuit journal America, the other a conversation with the atheist editor of Rome's La Repubblica newspaper -- have pundits, church analysts and Catholics pondering Francis' sharp break with the Vatican's familiar authoritarian tone.

My gut tells me not to make too much of it. My heart tells me not to make too little of it.

What the pope's been saying is layered and nuanced, and it defies any clear-cut summary. His words describe a church reformed in structure and emphasis -- more pastoral and collegial, less rigid and insular -- and seem to promise a new kind of dialogue with the faithful.

"The first reform must be the attitude. ... The people of God want pastors, not clergy acting like bureaucrats or government officials," he told America. "The bishops, particularly, must be able to support the movements of God among their people with patience, so that no one is left behind. But they must also be able to accompany the flock that has a flair for finding new paths."

Listen also to the gist of how he responded when the unbeliever interviewing him joked that his friends thought Francis would want to convert him: "Proselytism is solemn nonsense; it makes no sense. We need to get to know each other, listen to each other and improve our knowledge of the world around us. ... This is important: to get to know people, listen, expand the circle of ideas."

My inner skeptic warns it's much too soon to draw conclusions about whether or how Francis' welcome words, and the manner in which he speaks and carries himself, will manifest themselves in substantive change. There's a potential for turning the pope's persona into something of a Rorschach test in which the disenchanted project what they want to see.

We Catholics are left to wait and see in what form the pope means what he says. His words so far change nothing in regard to matters that many of today's Catholics struggle with -- how the church regards and treats women and gay people, for example -- nor give any reason to expect he will. And already there are contradictions.

Francis announced in April that he would not scuttle the process set in motion by his predecessor that assigns bishops to bring into line the Leadership Conference of Women Religious, a group representing most American nuns. The Vatican's doctrinal enforcers faulted the sisters for not being sufficiently closed to questions deemed to be decided and off-limits.

But this pope has also pointedly put less emphasis on some of those same matters, particularly issues of sexual morality, saying "it is not necessary to talk about these issues all the time." And his own words envision a church and a mission that is more recognizable in the good sisters' ministries than in the bishops who would "reform" them.

Some church watchers have been broadly dismissive of Francis as putting a more charming, pastoral face on the status quo, which they argue will largely survive intact. Perhaps they'll prove to be right, and his will merely be a more gentle form of absolutism.

But it's never been realistic to expect a pope to swiftly deliver in the manner of a political movement the changes so many Catholics want. More likely is that one would foster a new climate of broad openness and dialogue -- and appoint bishops and cardinals sympathetic to it -- creating some institutional cover for dissent and in due course clearing a path to take us there.

I last wrote about all of this in a spirit of weariness as the College of Cardinals gathered in March to choose a successor to Pope Benedict XVI. I expected the conclave to settle on a new pope who would embody more of the same.

Then the cardinals elected Jorge Mario Bergoglio, and he came to the balcony of St. Peter's Basilica as the first Pope Francis in plain white robes rather than full papal regalia. He's carried that tone of humility and simplicity forward and of late has begun to say startling things.

I don't trust the nascent hope those words encourage. But it bubbles nevertheless.